Many aircraft systems utilize linear or rotary actuators to control the position of aircraft components. In order to provide complete control over the position of the components, a sensor is typically used to sense the position of the actuator and provide the sensed information to a signal processing device such as a controller. The controller then determines appropriate adjustments to the actuator position to affect a desired adjustment to the component position.
One sensor type utilized for this type of sensing is a transformer based sensor including either shifting coils or a shifting core that shifts position along with the actuator. The shift in position of the coils or the core affects the output of the sensor in a known manner, allowing the controller to detect the output and calculate the position of the actuator. In order to achieve highly accurate sensor information from a transformer based sensor, two outputs from the sensor are detected, and the relative values of the two outputs are compared to determine the position of the actuator.
Ordinarily, differential transformer based sensors operate on a resistance-inductance (RL) circuit and do not include a capacitance. Some implementations, however, require the utilization of sensor cables of significant length that a capacitance from the cables is introduced into the sensor arrangement, resulting in a resistance-inductance-capacitance (RLC) circuit. It is similarly possible that the connections to other electrical devices or components can also add a capacitance to the sensor arrangement.
It is known in the art that RLC circuits include a cable resonance frequency resulting in a signal peak at the resonant frequency. If information is transmitted at, or close to, the resonance frequency, the peak can interfere with the information transmitted. This is referred to as cable peaking.